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We went to sleep with images of soldiers shooting people in the main streets of Istanbul… and awakened to the view of civilians celebrating their control of those streets from the top of liberated tanks. What an amazing piece of history!

The initial response

What do you do when you hear about a military coup?

Many of us will think hard whether to run for a cover or take out to the streets. It could be the difference between life and death – or between (relative) freedom and long years of dictatorship.

As I was following the news last night, US secretary of state John Kerry was also hedging his bets. For him the question, of course, was different… Supporting the coup or defending Turkish democracy? What he said at the time (as reported in the LA Times) was “We’ve heard reports that others have heard. I don’t have any details at this point in time. I hope there will be stability and peace and continuity within Turkey, but I have nothing to add on what has transpired at this moment.” If some of the coup plotters understood this as a green light from the US they couldn’t be blamed.

I’ve also noticed that some Facebook friends were following the news about the coup with some hope… Apparently some people are so hostile to political Islam that they are ready to give up all the principles of democracy and human rights and didn’t learn anything from the disastrous experience of Al-Sisi in Egypt. So I wrote (in Arabic) “يسقط يسقط حكم العسكر!” – “Down, down with Military Rule!” – this famous slogan of the Arab Spring – and went to sleep.

Victory to the People

The failure of the coup is a big victory for the people – first and foremost because it is the people that went out to the street at night, unarmed in the face of tanks and helicopter gunships, that won their freedom and democracy again, in the price of hundreds of martyrs and thousands wounded. Many soldiers defied orders from their superiors and joined the people, another victory for humanity over the system.

It is also a victory for Turkey’s civil society, where all the political parties took a stand against the coup, and many members of Parliament hurried at night to occupy and defend it under the threat of tanks. This unity in defense of democracy is especially significant if we remember the sharp divisions within society and between the parties, not least Erdogan’s military oppression against the Kurds and his attempt to criminalize the HDP – the main party of the left.

The failure of the coup is an important optimistic note in the ongoing argument where does new technology, and especially new media, take us. On one side repressive regimes use intensively the new options for surveillance, intimidation and control. On the positive side, new media is giving new powers to the people to report, argue and publish at real time. After the coup plotters took control of the official media, Erdogan himself used social media to call the people to go out and take control of the streets.

We all learn by examples. The success of the Assad regime to cling to power by bombing his citizens and the success of the military coup in Egypt to topple the first democratically elected president are very dangerous precedents. Now the failure of the coup in Turkey will restrain the appetite of similar coup plotters elsewhere.

Who sent the army against the people?

The very fact that some foolish army officers dared to try a new coup is a symptom of the crisis that Turkey is going through.

Most people take a partisan view to the crisis, ignoring facts, contradictions and constant changes. Most people tend to be either “Pro Erdogan”, blaming everybody else with plotting against him, or “Anti Erdogan”, blaming him and his party for whatever they do or don’t do.

The biggest contradiction in modern Turkey is its forced control over the Kurdish people. Here comes a most overt example of Marx’s saying that people who oppress other people can’t be free.

For many decades the army that was deployed to fight the Kurdish “enemy within” was using its powers to terrorize Turkish society as a whole. The Islamists, as a popular current within society, were also defined as an enemy and oppressed. In his first ten years in power Erdogan knew that the main danger to his rule came from the dictatorial tendencies within the army.

At the same time Erdogan tried some limited steps toward peace with the Kurdish people, led by the PKK and Abdullah Ocalan. Ocalan even steered the PKK toward another program, putting democracy and pluralism for Turkey (and the region) as a whole at the center of the Kurd’s agenda instead of the quest for a fully independent Kurdistan.

But recently, mostly after the success of the HDP in the parliamentary election limited his AK’s power, Erdogan seems to turn most of his fury against the Kurds, probably believing that the army was already tamed. By deploying the army to oppress Turkey’s citizens Erdogan put in danger the hard won democratic achievements of the last years.

Propaganda

On the other side, much of the western propaganda against Erdogan is pure racism and Islamophobia…

Turkish people take to the streets in Ankara, Turkey, late Friday, July 15, 2016. Turkey’s armed forces said it “fully seized control” of the country Friday and its president responded by calling on Turks to take to the streets in a show of support for the government. A loud explosion was heard in the capital, Ankara, fighter jets buzzed overhead, gunfire erupted outside military headquarters and vehicles blocked two major bridges in Istanbul. (AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici)

One example is the issue of the Gulenists – supporters of US based Islamist Fethullah Gulen. They constitute a right-wing secret religious organization embedded in the security forces and the judiciary. They were an essential help for Erdogan in his first years in power, helping to avert a military coup, sometimes using not-very-democratic tricks. But when they turned against Erdogan, and he tried to purge their power, the western media was full of cries about the danger to democracy. What is more democratic after all: An elected president or a secret society manipulating the state apparatus?

Comprehensive and balanced judgment is also required for other aspects of Turkey’s policy and crisis.

Erdogan is not a socialist, but his “nationalistic” capitalist policy to steer the economy away from servitude to the Western multi-nationals and toward more internal development and relations with 3rd world countries led to fast economic development.

Another hot and controversial issue is Erdogan’s new normalization of relations with Israel. While we call for complete boycott of the Apartheid state, there is still a lot of difference between Erdogan that tries to get some alleviation of the siege for the people of Gaza and others that take part and enhance the siege.

The biggest issue, of course, is Turkey’s position toward the Arab Spring in general and the civil war in Syria in particular. Each of Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon, absorb much more Syrian refugees, and is paying much higher price for the Syrian conflict, than all of rich Europe put together, without much less xenophobic uproar. Erdogan’s Islamic roots put him in a position to support the Syrian’s people struggle for freedom, but his enmity to the Kurdish people is an imminent obstacle.

While we celebrate the failure of the coup, we still have a hard struggle ahead to solve the underlying problems. The defense and enhancement of true democracy in Turkey and the region are not a one-night affair but a prolonged historic task. It requires every one of us to go beyond his religious (or secular), ethnic or political tribe and form a new type of pluralistic society.

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The Military Coup that ended the rule of Mohammad Morsi, the first freely elected Egyptian President, is a most dangerous curve in the plot of the Arab Spring. Till now things were pretty clear. There were the forces of the old regime, resisting any democratic change in order to defend their privilege. On the other side there was a mass uprising with political forces of all colors calling for democracy.

Now, for the first time, the masses were split and many of the forces that participated in the revolutionary overthrow of the Mubarak dictatorship teamed with the forces of the old regime to dissolve all the democratic institutions, the fruits of the revolution.

This obliges us to ask some very hard questions: What is the revolution? What are its goals? Can it still succeed? What is the way forward now? Trying to give answers as major events still unfold is not easy, but as many essential truths are masked by the smoke of war we can from some distance at least resume some of the lost honor of truth and reality, if not full revolutionary perspective.

A Coup is a Coup

It is always good, even at the time of major setbacks, to notice and celebrate small victories. For me that fact that our enemy lies to himself is a victory, because living in a faked reality is the choice of the weak. So when the United States refused to call the Coup a Coup it proved again how hollow is its claim to sponsor democracy and freedom. But the sting came with the position of the African Union – which denounced the Coup and automatically suspended Egypt. It is part of the new world order, where the old imperialist powers prove to be what they are – the enemies of the people – while the emerging states of the third world are taking democracy more seriously.

The Coup and the Revolution

A coup and a revolution are not mutually exclusive “ideas” or types of activity. Actually in the first surge of the Egyptian revolution, in the beginning of 2011, after mass demonstrations have shaken the dictatorship, it was the heads of the army that staged a court-coup to dispose Mubarak in order to save as much as possible of the old regime.

In 2011 the coup was staged to dislodge a regime that was basically a military dictatorship. It was a clear step toward democracy and it was welcomed by everybody. Now the coup is designed to topple an elected president, after the dissolution of the first freely elected parliament and it suspended the democratically adopted constitution.

But, in a sign that Egypt has gone a long way with the revolution, the army, while taking power by force, swears its loyalty to the revolution and the Egyptian people. Unlike 2011, the army avoids taking direct power in its own hands but appoints a top judge, Adly Mansour, as civilian president – noting that the old regime’s judges were best at keeping their positions after the revolution and played a leading role in undermining the new democracy.

Actually the coup in Egypt was not possible without the cooperation and support of big part of the revolutionary forces. This blog made a point of characterizing the revolution not by a political or social agenda but as the active intervention of the masses to change the political order. Many Egyptian people celebrated the coup when it was announced, and many generally democratic and progressive people were rejoiced in the Arab world and beyond. But take care: In the politics of the coup, the alliance between the revolutionary forces and the remnants of the old order is not even an equal partnership. The masses were mobilized to legitimize the move but all the keys of control were given to the representatives of the old order – and it is not an issue of political beliefs but the vested interests of the classes that were (and still are) plundering Egypt and keeping it and its people in poverty, servitude and backwardness for decades.

The Egyptian Political Divide

It is very hard to count people in demonstrations. All estimations from the organizers, the media and the police are always politically biased. It is much easier to count votes – but revolution is a very fluid state with people’s opinions and affiliations changing fast.

An additional reason for the volatility of the Egyptian public scene is the political vacuum that was left by a long period of tyranny – when only very small elite had any experience of political struggle. Religious movements had the advantage of keeping the connection with the masses through activity in the mosques but no real experience in governance or coalition building.

In the first election after the revolution – the Parliamentary elections that took place between November 28, 2011 and January 11, 2012 – the Muslim Brothers came out as the biggest party with 37.5% of the votes. With the (even more Islamic) Nour party’s 27.8% they formed a clear majority in the elected assembly. The forces of the old regime were prevented from taking part.

When the second elections took place – this time for the presidency – in May and June 2012, the political picture already seemed much different. In the first round the Brotherhood came first with 25% of the vote. The clear representative of the old regime, Ahmed Shafik, that was now allowed in by Adly Mansour’s court, came a close second with almost 24%. Third place went to the mild leftist Hamadeen Sabahi with 21%. The next Islamic candidate came after him with 17%.

As a result the second round of the elections was a run-off between the Muslim Brothers’ Morsi and Shafik. Taking into account that all the other candidates were aligned with the revolution, you could expect Morsi to take over 70% of the vote. In the final count it was 51.73% for Morsi against 48.27% for Shafik.

Assuming that almost all the other Islamic vote went to Morsi, it means that the majority of secular pro-revolution voters preferred the clear representative of the old order over a Muslim Brother. And this was in 2012 before any of the true and alleged list of Morsi’s mistakes.

The Problem with the Brothers

At the beginning of the European Spring in 1848, Marx and Engels started “The Communist Manifesto” with the words: “A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of communism”. To much the same effect, the Arab World, still in the beginning of its spring, is haunted by the spectre of Islamism. Marx and Engels conclusion was that “It is high time that Communists should openly, in the face of the whole world, publish their views, their aims, their tendencies, and meet this nursery tale of the Spectre of Communism with a manifesto of the party itself.” The Muslim Brothers, shaped by decades of persecution, would generally prefer to talk less and do more.

When the Russian Revolution in 1917 started as a mass democratic and social protest movement and toppled the Tsar in February, the Bolsheviks were not the biggest party but they were the best organized and had a clear idea what they want to achieve. Lenin knew he had a short window of opportunity to take control before a new bourgeois political class will establish its rule. In the Bolshevik revolution of November 1917 he was fast to pass into law the “black distribution” – giving the poor peasants in every location the legitimacy of the revolution to independently take control of their land. Later the peasants fought to defend their land by saving the revolution.

The Brothers are the main organized party of the Arab revolution – but they are revolutionaries of a very different kind. If we judge by what they did when they had the chance to rule, they are trying not to rock the boat. They try to give assurances to imperialism. They think they can improve the economic situation simply by more honest, independent and professional management (which sounds likely, taking into account the wild corruption of the old regime). They try to neutralize the influence of the apparatus of the old regime by compromise and by democratic legitimacy.

This “we the good guys” approach to the democratic revolution faces several major obstacles, where every point of their strength becomes also a cause of vulnerability:

Their image as the inevitable winners of the Arab Spring tends to unite all other parties against them, or at least to limit their influence, even before they reach real power.

Their disciplined organization is feared by foes and allies alike.

Their reliance on religious ideology alienates people of other religions, adherents of other tendencies of Islam and an influential liberal middle class – leaving them to fight for an a priori limited support base and making coalition building harder.

Their remedy of gradual reform requires a long time and stable conditions to materialize. It proved a success in Turkey where a similar party took control in democratic elections in a relatively stable country. They seemed helpless and hapless in Egypt where they took control in the middle of political and economic crisis and where all other parties were unwilling to give them an opportunity to prove themselves.

Their readiness to play by the rules of formal democracy is not a good substitute to the more essential basic work of confidence building, networking, bringing together allies and solving problems with rivals.

In the end, the problem with the brothers is not that they don’t stand in my or your standards, but when they don’t stand by their own standards. The Brothers will usually avoid a fight if it is not likely to be an assured win.

In Egypt 2011 they declared that they wouldn’t put a candidate for the presidency – probably because they were aware that winning elections was much easier than governing and that they don’t have the material conditions for implementing their program in government.

Even at the last moment before this week’s military coup, according to the testimony of Yasser Al-Za’atra in Al-Jazeera, the Brothers’ leadership was aware to the preparations for military coup and preferred that Morsi will agree to a referendum about early elections, which will stay within the limits of the democratic game. In the end internal differences prevented this last moment attempt to avoid a clash.

The Revolution must continue!

The limits of the political leaderships are clear… The biggest responsibility rests with the Leftist and Liberal leaderships that play to the hands of the old regime. Now the Brothers justly feel cheated of legitimately won power and their first response is to show that they can’t easily be shoved off.

Still the revolution is much bigger and more important than any political leadership. It is the movement of the Egyptian people to control their own lives and to assure their dignity and social rights. In my view, with the lack of a Leninist leadership that can unite the masses around a clear goal, there is no alternative to the patient building of dialog and understanding between all the sections of society that are interested in a democratic future for Egypt.

By Ditte Scharnberg

‘Chains can imprison a poet physically, restrict his movements and impose house arrest, but they can’t restrict his thoughts, tongue, words and poems’.

Ditte Scarnberg announcing the Award to Dareen Tatour

Those were the words from Dareen Tatour to the Danish Carl Scharnberg Foundation, when, in June 2017, we awarded her a prize – 2000 euros – to support her fight for poetry, art and justice.

All of us in the foundation feel strongly about encouraging Dareen to keep on fighting. And we are quite sure that had he still been alive, my father Carl Scharnberg (1930-1995) – poet and political activist – surely would have been among her supporters and surely would have printed her poems to be read in Denmark.

Who was the poet Carl Scharnberg?

My father was called the working man’s poet. Not without cause. For a couple of generations he was traveling all over the country, giving talks and reciting from his own literary works at trade union meetings and at the schools of the labour movement. About thirty books were produced on the way: novels, shorts stories, essays and collections of poems.

Actually he performed the unique trick of getting the man on the shop floor to enjoy poetry – Carl’s poetry anyhow – because his poems are down-to-earth and at the same time sensitive, committed and engaging.

Underway

To choose – it’s not to yield and submit

and gently lower one’s voice,

or to give in to pretty words

avoiding a troublesome choice.

To choose is more than taking a risk,

much more than a question af trade.

To choose is in spite of your innermost fear

to do what you want to evade.

(A poem by Carl Scharnberg)

The fight for peace

Influenced by his experience as a child at the Second World War, Carl Scharnberg became a political activist, especially interested in the struggle for world peace. He founded the Danish campaign against nuclear weapons in the 1960’s – which succeeded to keep Denmark free of nuclear weapons on its ground. Through the rest of his life, he always supported the wide range of movements for peace in the world – with his poems and by standing up as a speaker at demonstrations.

“Unofficial points of view”

From 1968 and until his death Carl Scharnberg was supplying a wide circle of trade union periodicals and grass-root publications with a private and independent ‘press service’. In close cooperation with well-known writers, poets and illustrators he spread a monthly issue of articles, mini-posters, etc. all over the country, provided with a general permission to reprint and copy. It was called ‘unofficial points of view’.

A foundation for solidarity, human rights and peace

After my father’s death in 1995, many people in the trade unions, with whom he was working for decades, decided to build a foundation to support artists and activists working in his spirit. Our family, my brother, mother and me, were very moved by the idea, and have supported it ever since.

During more than twenty years the foundation every year awards prizes and grants. The prizes are announced in June, related to the day of Carl’s birth. Till now we recognized and supported this way the contributions of 73 different people, groups and movements working for solidarity, human rights and peace.

The Palestinian poet Dareen Tatour is now among those brave and strong people. All of us must do whatever we can to support her!

Why I support the NO vote in the Turkish referendum?

When I was touring Turkey with my family in 1996, I fell in love with the country. I had the feeling that it looks very much like Palestine would have been if it was not torn apart and stepped over by settlers.

Not that everything looked good. There was poverty almost everywhere, and the military presence was thick and frightening. The soldiers would look suspiciously at people in the streets and point their guns as if ready to shoot you. Going to the countryside we noticed that the government seemed absent while people were building mosques everywhere. The country was ripe for the rise of political Islam.

Turkey’s Contradictions

Following Turkish politics over the years was very instructive. Turkey is not just another big country in the Middle East. In the last decades the political developments in the region concentrated around the conflict between the powers of the old order, Imperialism, Zionism and entrenched local elites, and a mass movement mostly under Islamic orientation. In Iran there was a stormy revolution in 1979, followed by war, internal terror and upheavals. In Turkey the Islamists came to power by elections in 2002 as a reformist force. Also, Turkey’s Islam is mostly Sunni and the Justice and Development Party (AKP), the main Islamic party in Turkey, is regarded to be close to the Moslem Brotherhood – the biggest political party (even as it is persecuted in many places) in most Arab countries. So the Turkish experience was regarded as probing one alternative for developments in the wider region.

The AKP election victory in 2002 didn’t mean that the party could really lead the country, as Turkey’s democracy was a very limited and ultimate power laid with the army. Even after AKP was already long time in government there were attempts to “outlaw” it, as was done with a previous democratically elected Islamic government in 1997-98. The struggle about who really governs Turkey continued. By gradually neutralizing the grip of the army over the state, the AKP, led by Erdogan, made an essential service to democracy in Turkey. Only after the failed coup in July 2016 did the elected government achieve effective control over the army.

Many critics of Turkey in the Arab world like to speak about the danger of Erdogan’s attempts to revive the Ottoman Empire, much the same as others speak about the Iranian danger. I tend to be more conservative in my analysis and assume that the main hegemon (politically, militarily and economically) continues to be external imperialism. I look at the rise of local powers more as an opportunity. In its 15 years in government AKP changed the political and economic orientation of Turkey to be less dependent on Western powers and more oriented to its regional neighbours and other third world countries. It seemed to have a very positive effect for Turkey’s development.

The Kurdish Litmus

The most pressing internal contradiction in Turkey is its control over northern Kurdistan. The denial of the Kurdish nationality, language and culture kept alive the experiences of ethnic cleansing against minorities that accompanied the establishment of modern Turkey as a nation-state. The continued military effort to suppress the Kurdish aspirations for freedom and equality gave constant legitimacy to internal oppression and fascist nationalism. It is another example of Marx’s saying that people who oppress other people can’t be free. The position toward the Kurdish question is the most important litmus test for the democratic attitude of any party or government in Turkey.

In his first period in power it seemed that Erdogan is moving toward a more compromising position toward the Kurds. He relieved restrictions over the use of the Kurdish language and opened negotiations with the PKK and its jailed leader, Abdullah Ocalan. In 2013 they reached an agreement about ceasefire that was supposed to open the way for a peaceful solution.

But recent developments showed that Erdogan is turning Turkey away from the path toward democracy. Naturally it started with changing policy toward Kurdistan. You can set the turning point in the June 7, 2015, general elections. The partial democratization allowed the democratic forces in Turkey, led by Kurdish militants, to create The Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) and pass the restrictive 10% hurdle for representation in the parliament, gaining 13% of the popular vote. Erdogan’s party used to get much of the Kurdish vote before as the less-anti-Kurdish choice. It lost its majority in parliament and had to choose between forming a coalition government and new elections. It unleashed a wave of oppression in Kurdistan in order to beat its Kurdish opponents on one side and appease Turkish nationalist voters on the other. It won absolute majority in rerun of the elections in November 2015.

After the failed coup, in spite of the wise support of all political parties to the government against the coup plotters, Erdogan used his reasserted legitimacy not only to persecute supporters of the coup but also to raise the general level of political oppression. The main victims were, how not, the Kurds. Many HDP leaders were arrested and any pro-Kurdish political activity can (again) result with charges of terrorism.

On the most important “foreign affairs” front – the civil war in Syria – the choice for Turkey was most blunt. It could give a major boost to democracy in Syria by supporting and helping to unite all democratic forces. Instead the Turkish regimes indulgence with oppressing Kurds in Turkey dictated its enmity to the Kurdish forces and their Arab allies in Rojava, united under the umbrella of The Syrian Democratic Forces. This approach bears much of the responsibility for the resulting disaster in Aleppo and continued weakness of the Syrian opposition.

Western Hypocrisy

One reason why democracy in Turkey is so fragile is the hypocritical preaching by Western imperialists and their Turkish allies. You can start from the latest campaign for the referendum to change Turkey’s constitution, when European “democrats” were hunting Turkish ministers in aeroplanes and trains to prevent them from meeting Turkish voters in their “freedom-of–speech heavens”. I followed the news closely but till now I can’t even imagine on what legal grounds this was done. And you can go back to the root, where the Turkish-NATO army was regularly overthrowing democratically elected governments, razing to the ground hundreds of Kurdish villages and torturing thousands of political prisoners from all backgrounds – supposedly all in the name of freedom and Western values.

In between there is a whole encyclopaedia of double-talk and racist double-standards. Turkey should fight to defend the West against its Middle Eastern brothers but it and its citizens are refused access to the EU because they are too poor, too Islamic and not white enough. Every move by the Turkish regime is met with ridicule and patronizing disdain. Maybe the most hypocritical of all is the way that Humanistic Europe is paying the Turkish government (and Libya and others) to make the crossing of the Mediterranean so deadly for refugees, just because they can’t see the suffering on their own side.

Time to change course

All these contradictions return us to the methodology of political analysis. It is wrong to analyse a party or a regime according to its declared ideology. In every country there are concrete issues and everybody should be judged by their concrete answers and actions.

Some of my most secular friends tell me that they know what is the position of this or that Islamic movement, because they learned Islam and they know what is written in Islam’s holy books on that case. This will never explain why there are so many Islamic currents, with such different positions, some of them even fighting each other.

As much as I can see, the problem with Erdogan his not that Islam is contrary to democracy. The problem with him and his movement is that it started as a popular movement against oppressive regime, but now, after fifteen years in government, it entered a marriage of convenience with Turkish nationalism and the oppressive state apparatus. History can tell about many other movements, from all ideological hues, which went through similar transformations.

Even if Erdogan was a perfect leader, I wouldn’t recommend letting him concentrate more state powers or extend his spell at the head of government. Everybody can learn from this wise old Chinese, Deng Xiao Ping, who showed by personal example that the way to ensure your political agenda even after your death is to relay power in an orderly way to a new generation while you are still at your best.

Lessons from the USA election campaign

The coming elections in the US supplied an extraordinary drama, watched with both enthusiasm and disdain almost all over the world. If this is the most important democratic election for the most influential leadership position in the world, the scarcity of the debate about the real issues at stake must make people ask substantial questions about democracy. The identity and performance of the candidates, especially Republican Donald Trump, and the fact that an enormous establishment, with millions of people and billions of dollars, couldn’t produce a more respectable candidate, must raise even more substantial soul searching questions about the human nature.

The Big Picture

Lenin once said that, while the yellow press floods us with lies about everything, the good serious capitalist press feeds us with plenty of facts and information in order to hide the big picture. In the rest of this post I will try to relate to some of the big issues that all this election campaign and all the serious fact-finding and analysis around it are either ignoring or trying to hide…

Trump promises to “make America great again”. Clinton is trying to out-perform Trump’s patriotism by claiming that mighty America is as great as ever and couldn’t be diminished. But the whole election campaign is only a small animated illustration to the fact that the USA is not what it used to be.

The people of the US are famous for their ignorance of the world outside their borders. But for the last hundred years the fate and meaning of the USA, call it “greatness” or “the big Satan” or “imperialism” or “leader of the free world”, was not about what happens inside these borders but developed around its role as the strongest and finally the only world superpower.

This time is over. And it is not over because America became any smaller. It is over because we, the rest of the world, succeeded somehow to grow.

China’s rise, USA’s decline

In 2012, in one of the first posts in this blog, I presented an optimistic view on China’s rise. Let me try to sketch here in raw lines an optimistic view about America’s decline, or rather the decline of the North American imperialism.

First ask yourself what is “America”? Talking about the United States as “America” already ignores and marginalizes most of the people living in the American continents from Canada in the north to Chile and Argentine in the south. The population of the US is hardly a third of the almost billion people that live in the Americas. This naming that ignores your neighbors is only a symbol of the disregard toward and tramping over the people of the rest of the world…

Second, how do you define greatness? No doubt, at least when we speak about the most capitalist nation, that the economy is playing a central role in it. What most readers of the mainstream media might have easily missed is the “small” fact that the US is no more the biggest economy in the world. According to “The World Factbook”, a site maintained by the CIA, in 2015 China’s GDP (measured by purchasing power parity) was 19.7 trillion dollar, almost 10% more than the US’s 18 trillion. In fact China has already become the biggest economy in the world in 2014.

But this raw measure is far from revealing the whole picture. China’s economy is in a positive momentum, while the US (and the rest of the imperialist powers in Western Europe and Japan) failed to get their economies back on their feet after the 2008 world financial crisis. To hide this we can read every day articles about the “slowdown” in the Chinese economy, which means that it is developing steadily at 6-7% yearly. In China’s planned economy they build modern cities (no shanty towns there) for 300 million people that will move from their villages to the cities over the next 15 years – that alone is like building a brand new USA or Western Europe.

The difference between a rising productive power and a declining parasitic empire is illustrated as we look at the relations of the two economies with the outside world. According to the same source, China’s exports at 2.1 trillion are 40% higher than the US’s 1.5, while its imports at 1.6 are only 70% of the US’s 2.3.

The good jobs that went to China, manufacturing everything from steel to trains to computers and smartphones, are not such good jobs any more. They don’t pay western salaries. It is just that people around the world can now buy all of these things much cheaper. This is another reason why we don’t cry with our USA brothers.

China is a different kind of world power. Its 1.3 billion people made all the way from being one of the poorest people on earth, just fifty years ago, to the top of the world economy by hard work and (relatively) good management. They are the first great world power that didn’t gain its place through occupation and exploitation of other nations. This in itself is a basic fact to think about and a major reason for optimism.

Imperialism is not working any more

The hegemony of the Western powers, and over the second half of the 20th century the hegemony of the USA, enabled them to dictate the world division of labor and the terms of trade to the benefit of the big multinational capitalist companies. This was the source of the “good jobs” that the US and European citizens are now longing for. 80% of humanity was forced to sell its resources for cheap and work for pennies in marginalized agriculture or industry and serve as an open market for the Western developed economies.

After direct colonialism and military occupations were not sustainable any more, neocolonialism and neoliberalism served the same hegemony very well. In the second half of the 20th century, almost any local leader in the 3rd world that tried to do something to develop his country was either deposed or assassinated by agents of the USA. Look for the fate of Patrice Lumumba in Congo, Mohammad Mossadegh of Iran, Sukarno from Indonesia, Salvador Allende of Chile and Omar Torrijos of Panama, to name just a few.

Bloody dictatorships, regional wars, civil wars, ethnic cleansing, bombing and occupation – no cruelty was too much to force the subjugation of the third world – the vast majority of humanity – to imperialist rule. In the nineties, after the fall of the Soviet Union, there seemed to be no challenge left to the imperialist rule. By that time most 3rd world countries were under some form of sanctions by the “international community” for this reason or that. Real commodities prices, representing the terms of trade of the 3rd world, reached unprecedented historic lows (see graph taken from a study by David Jacks in NBER). The global gap between the starving majority and the prosperous imperialist center seemed widening forever.

But every party has its hangover. There came the surge of noisy protests at trade conferences and summits of the world imperialist leaders. There were the world social forums, looking for alternatives. When neoliberalism drove Argentine into an economic wall, mass mobilization casted away one government after another and brought to power (in 2003) the leftist Peronists, which refused to pay Argentine’s international debt. When, out of the blue, crazy Arab militants kidnapped airplanes and flew them into the WTC in New York, some people in the USA started to ask “why do they hate us?”

The empire tried to strike back to re-establish its authority, but somehow the world was not responding as expected. In 2002 the army in Venezuela tried to repeat the CIA coup scenario that worked so well in Latin America before, but the masses took to the streets and reinstated Hugo Chavez. When the US army occupied Iraq in 2003, it found that defeating the Iraqi army was the easiest part of it. Popular resistance made the occupation unsustainable and the ensuing US-imposed government in Iraq ended up doing business with China and closer politically to Iran, which is supposed to be the strategic rival of the US in the region. The US ended up burning about one trillion dollar in Iraq for no obvious benefit, (killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and destroying the lives of millions is nothing to count in world politics). It was about the same one trillion that were missing in its coffers when it financial system collapsed in 2008.

From Argentine to Iran, from Cuba to Sudan and Zimbabwe, when the Western powers were trying to force economic blockade of undisciplined third world nations, we’ve seen the new China factor. There is almost nothing you can’t buy in China these days. Over the last fifteen years the gap between the imperialist centers and the 3rd world started to contract. For the first time talking about “developing countries” doesn’t sound so hollow.

Dangerous curves ahead

Being optimist doesn’t mean that you should ignore the dangers ahead. One fact that makes the next period combustive is that while the USA is a declining economic power it still holds the strongest military by far. An irresponsible US president may try to use this power to try to “make America great again”. I do not think that there is a real danger that the USA can make itself the top world power again, but in the process of trying it can easily destroy humanity.

We have seen president Obama declaring his pivot to East Asia, trying to build all kind of military alliances in the region to contain China. We have read the capitalist media writing endlessly with running tears about the danger to World Peace from China building some artificial islands, while they see no danger in the easily preventable death of thousands of refugees in the Mediterranean and have little problem with the continuing killing of hundreds of thousands of Arabs in civil wars in Syria and Yemen.

Some good friends that are fed up by US interventions in our (and other) region(s) are hoping for a Trump victory. They believe it will be such a disgrace that it will accelerate the process of diminishing US influence worldwide. It could happen. You can forgive them if they are ready to sacrifice the US itself for another period of internal racist tension and upheavals. But as I see that the decline of US power is irreversible, and the main danger today is from a desperate attempt to reverse it, I wouldn’t recommend taking the pill that may kill you.

It is us, the people

I would like to finish with one more optimistic note about democracy in the USA and in general. When we speak about democracy we should look for the substance, not any symbolic representation. How much power people really have to control their future?

First start with what comes up in mind in this election, the qualities of the candidates… It is my humble opinion that the candidates in this election are not basically morally different from most candidates over the last decades. I think the main difference is that now we know much more about everything, including about the candidates past, their connections and obligations to the capitalist class, etc. The other factor that comes up in this election is that most people are angrier and less tolerant to the behavior of the candidates – only that they differ about their priority target for anger. So, even as there is no positive alternative in sight, we see that the basic balance of power between the establishment and the people is changing as a result of technological progress, education and the crisis of the system.

Second the content of democracy is not the “consumerist” free choice between Coca Cola and Pepsi, as many US elections used to be. Till now voters in Iran had more diverse options (consider Ahmadinejad vs. Khatami) and more influence about the general direction of the regime than US voters used to have. In this election for the first time a more profound option, the vaguely socialist Bernie Sanders, came anywhere close to be counted.

The US is not ripe for true change, but in this election it already raised the glass ceiling that prevented women from contesting the presidency, and it may have its first Ms President. Not a small change if you remember that women are allowed to vote there only since 1920.

The greatness of US imperialism left its people weak and helpless. It deprived them of free education and health care that are taken for granted in many much poorer countries. It made them work longer hours and be thrown to the dogs if they are not useful to the machine. If they are Native Americans, Black, Muslims or Hispanic they may be terrorized or humiliated. The only statistic in which the US leadership is unchallenged worldwide is the rate of incarceration.

While the US multinationals had the power to rule and rob the world, ordinary people could only run endlessly along the predesigned competition for career and consumerism, with minimal control over their own lives and no say about the future of their country.

Now, as the system is disintegrating, it is the time that the people will take control of their lives. The American people (from Canada to Argentine, NY & Texas included), like all the people of the world, will be the winners from the demise of US imperialism.

(*) Comment about the title

I don’t know whether you share my associations – so I may explain.

It is a common saying in “relations”, when a guy leaves a girl (or vice versa), that he tries to be nice and says: “It is not you, it is me”. Meaning, don’t blame yourself. I’m “not built for a lengthy connection”. It is intended to be polite, but as it became an easy pattern it is thought to be nasty.

I wanted to start with “Dear America” to emphasis the romantic cord – but many of my readers are too angry at “America” and may have no patience with my literature niceties…

But my American readers are really dear to me, and I hope they will find this piece somewhat consoling in these hard days.

Over the last couple of weeks, three dozen leaders and activists of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA, AKA Tajamu or Balad) were arrested by the Israeli racist police. Below is a post that I published in Hebrew in “Haifa Ha-Hofshit” on September 24, at the height of the persecutions campaign. Yesterday, Sunday, October 2, the last of the detainees, local council member Murad Hadad from Shefa’amer, was transferred to house detention.

Cause and effect

John and Jack made the same traffic violation. Rich John was treated gently by the police and the court, had a good lawyer and finally got off with paying a fine. Unfortunately Jack is poor, he couldn’t afford proper legal defense and the police and courts treated him with impatience and suspicion. Finally, he finds himself in jail. It would be wrong to say that he is in jail because of a traffic violation. Jack is in prison because he is poor.

Why NDA members were arrested?

On Sunday, September 18, 2016, in a pre-dawn semi-military operation, police raided the homes of 23 members of “Al-Tagamu Al-Watani Al-Dimokrati” (NDA) in Arab towns and villages from the Naqab desert in the south through the Triangle and up to the Galilee in the north. They arrested “suspects” and confiscated equipment. The detainees included national leaders, key activists and a number of lawyers and accountants that handle the affairs of the party. On Wednesday another 13 key activist were arrested in similar pre-dawn raids.

On Sunday afternoon the first 23 detainees were brought for a remand hearing, some of them in Haifa and the rest in Rishon Le-Zion, the seat of “investigating unit”, Lahav 433. After waiting for hours in the corridors of the Haifa court I succeeded to attend the remand hearings of my friend Awad Abed Al-Fattah, The NDA’s Chairman, and several other detainees. It turned out that the accusations are about donations allegedly brought from abroad to finance the party’s activities. The prosecution claimed that the donations were not registered properly, in violation of regulations concerning party financing. There were no claims of corruption or personal gains.

Whoever follows Israeli news knows that all parties in Israel regularly face similar charges, and other much more serious concerning blatant corruption, on much larger scale. Particularly there are charges of corruption, accepting multi-million dollars in unreported transfers from foreign tycoons, against the main Zionist parties, Likud and “The Zionist Camp”. We never heard about nightly raids and mass arrests against leaders and members of these parties.

Nazareth united Demo supporting NDA detainees, Tuesday, September 20

The only reasonable explanation for the detention of the Tajamu members is that they were arrested because they are Arabs. If you want to be more precise you can add that they were arrested because they are Palestinian Arabs who dare to criticize the racist policies of the Israeli government and demand democracy and equal rights for their people.

A Severe Accusation

In the 80s I studied at the Technion in Haifa. It happened that, by that period, a young woman from Haifa, a soldier in the Israeli army, disappeared. Some piece of cloth that might have belonged to her was found near the Technion. The “investigating team” in the racist Haifa police decided to interrogate all the Arab students at the Technion…

Invitations were sent to hundreds of Arab students to appear for questioning. Anyone who didn’t receive the invitation, or failed to appear on time for any other reason, was hunted by the police from the lectures’ halls and taken to the police headquarters in Haifa’s downtown.

Friends that were detained in this campaign told me about the following incident:

While sitting in the corridors of the Haifa police, waiting to go in for questioning, they were approached by an old Arab man, who greeted them and asked:

And you guys, what are you detained for?

We? Just because we are Arabs…

The old man looked at them worried and said:

You are in trouble guys… this is a severe accusation!

One can also die from it

The Israeli government prevents the building of a hospital in Sakhnin, the main urban center in the middle of the Galilee, which is more than half an hour’s drive from the nearest hospital. As a result, if anyone in this region is wounded in a car accident, or goes through a heart attack or a stroke, his chances of staying alive decline significantly.

Whoever died due to failure to receive timely medical treatment didn’t die of a heart attack or a stroke. He died, in accordance with the political decision of the government of Israel, because he is an Arab.

After more than three months in jail and more than six months in house arrest on exile near Tel Aviv, after her unexpected detention yesterday (Monday, July 25, 2016), poet Dareen Tatour was allowed today to return to Reineh, still under house arrest and the same harsh conditions.

Celebrating Dareen’s return to Reineh: with writer Kim Jensen

But it was only at about 20:30 that Tawfiq, Dareen’s father, collected her from the street near Damoun prison on Mount Carmel. It was another crazy day showing how the whole judiciary, police, prosecution and the prison department are doing everything to make life unbearable for the Palestinians (and many other ordinary residents).

Yesterday judge Hana Sabagh, at the Nazareth low court, decided to send Dareen to prison, in spite of the agreement by the prosecution to let her go back to Reineh, just because the private company that is responsible to the electronic surveillance didn’t yet submit a written report. The hearing today was set to 13:00, and the defense lawyers, Juana Far, had the missing paper ready with her, so we expected a smooth sail.

Hearing Problems

This time we were not waiting with Dareen, as she was held in a prison cell in the basement of the building, after spending the night in Jelemeh detention center. At about 14:00 she was brought to the isolated deck in the court room, carefully watched by two guards, a man and a woman.

As the judge started the hearing, noting the agreement between the prosecution and the defense, the prosecution lawyer requested to speak. At the last moment she tried to tighten Dareen’s detention restrictions. Some three month ago, the court allowed Dareen a small “window” in her house arrest: On Thursday, Friday and Saturday every week she is allowed to get out of the house, still accompanied by one of her supervisors, for two hours (from 17:00 till 19:00). This is less than the time that regular prisoners are allowed to go to stretch their body in the prison yard. Now the prosecution wanted to abolish this small window as a price for their agreement to Dareen’s return to Reineh. Luckily the judge frowned at this new complication and made it clear that the conditions stay as they are.

But just as we expected the judge to order the release of Dareen and that we will be allowed to go together out of court, he found a new way to torture us. Even that the only reason for Dareen’s arrest yesterday was the missing paper, he ordered now that Dareen will be taken back to prison until the surveillance company will complete all the technical arrangement.

Bureaucratic Nightmare

We started a craze race against time to get all the paper work done. They wouldn’t give you the necessary forms in court to fill, so the lawyer had to go back to her office to find the right forms and come back to the court house to let Dareen sign them in her prison cell.

After the first bunch of papers was ready, the company asked for another couple of forms to be filled. It was already 15:40 and the gourds, officers of the “Nakhshon” prisoners’ transfer unit, said that if we can get all the papers right until 16:00 or 16:30 we may get Dareen with us from the court. Otherwise they will return her back to prison.

So lawyer Juana hurried back to her office. But the surveillance company insisted that the forms should be sent to them from the court’s fax and not from the lawyer’s office. In spite of the strike we found some nice clerk in the court’s office that agreed to get the faxes from Juana and send them to the company. It was exactly 16:30 when we receive the fax delivery confirmation from the court’s office. We warmly thanked the clerk, wished her victory in the strike and run down to “minus 3” were the prisoners are held.

The guards were still there holding Dareen, but the surveillance company said they didn’t get the fax yet. We called the lawyers and requested them to call the company and see what the hell is going on with them. At about 17:00 the people at the company admitted that they received the fax, but said that they want somebody from the court’s office to call them to make sure that it was really sent from the court. We run back to the court’s office but there was nobody there. In the meantime it became clear that the guards are also gone with Dareen – the brave ones simply spirited away without telling us, leaving us waiting at the door and ringing the bell in vain.

Unwanted Prisoner

The next chapter is what I heard from Dareen after she was released.

She was taken by the guards. Initially they said that they will take her to “Ha-Sharon” prison, near Kfar Saba, some 90 kilometers away. Then, for unknown reason, they changed their mind and decided to take her to Damoun, the last prison where she spent time in her three month imprisonment.

The “Nakhshonim” tried to submit her to the prison officers, but those checked in their computers and found that Dareen was released and refused to accept here. Hearing that, the Nakhshonim decided that they have already lost too much time on this lost cause and just drove away, leaving Dareen there, standing at the gates of the Damoun prison – an unwanted prisoner.

The prison officers let Dareen make a telephone call (her telephone was taken from her when she was arrested). Luckily she remembered the number of her brother, who called her father. For a long time she just stood there, near the mountain road, waiting for her father to come and take her home.

Celebrations

At night, when they finally reached the family house in Reineh, there were happy celebrations with many people coming to congratulate Dareen on her return home after an ordeal that lasted more than nine months. There were fireworks, food and oriental sweets.

Vegan food in the celebrations of the home-coming of (vegetarian) Dareen – Mujadara

There was also music – it came out the Dareen is learning also to play the guitar – in addition to her love for poetry and photography. Holding her guitar she told us how the policemen that came to arrest her on October and confiscated her computer and smartphone asked about the guitar: Is it yours also? She replied: Will you take my guitar also?

As we left the house at half past midnight, the whole family was expecting a white night. The people from the surveillance company said they will come at around 02:00 to install the equipment. Despite judge Sabagh’s tireless effort, Dareen was left for many hours without active surveillance. And this time, in spite of all his efforts, he failed even to ruin our day.

Even as Dareen was celebrating her home-coming, we talked about the next phase of the trial. If found “guilty” – which is what happens with about 99% of the people indicted in Israeli courts – she is expected to serve another prolonged period in prison. The struggle to #Free_Dareen_Tatour, like the bigger struggle for Palestinian human rights, has still a long way to go.

Of all the Leftist leaders that came to power in Latin America in the last “Red Wave”, the one I love most is Evo Morales, the indigena president of Bolivia.

Evo Morales

But, to say the truth, when the news came that voters in Bolivia rejected (in the February 21, 2016, referendum) the proposal to remove restrictions on presidential terms – thus preventing Morales from reelection for a 4th term in 2019 – I was satisfied with the result.

It shouldn’t signal the end of the rule of the MAS – Bolivia’s “Movement for Socialism”. It gives Morales plenty of time to prepare for an orderly transfer of power to a new generation that will continue his struggle. But if during 13 years in government he will fail to build a leadership that will be able to carry on without him being at the top post – Bolivian socialism may require a period in opposition to reorganize.

Red Wave of Hope

When the poor people of Venezuela elected Hugo Chavez as president, in December 6, 1998, we still lived in “the end of history” after the collapse of the “Socialist Block” led by the Soviet Union. The power of imperialism, led by the North American US, seemed too strong to challenge.

Soon challenges mounted from many sides. Al-Qaeda’s September 11 (2001) terrorist attacks in the heart of the US centers of power drew the imperialist super-power into two ill-conceived bloody and costly wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. China built itself into the main engine of the world economy while internal corruption hit hard at the heart of the capitalist economy, resulting in a global economic crisis.

Latin America’s people used the diminished power of imperialism and its distraction by other fronts to challenge the imperialist domination by electing a series of leftist governments: Lula Da Silva in Brazil and Nestor Kirchner in Argentina in 2003, Morales in Bolivia in 2006, Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua and Rafael Correa in Ecuador in 2007 and Jose Mujica in Uruguay in 2010, to name some.

President Jose Mujica at farm home – he was shot six times and spent 14 years in jail for opposing the dictatorship

The comprehensive nature of this wave is a result of the previous period of right-wing dictatorships and repressive regimes, symbolized by Pinochet’s bloody coup in Chile (1973) and the dictatorship and dirty war in Argentine (1974-1983). In other countries repression was even bloodier, like the rule of the death-squads’ government in Colombia and the genocide by the Guatemalan government against its native population. It was a US-coordinated war against the people, which crashed the hopes of a whole generation across the continent. Many of the youth that fought bravely against these oppressive regimes, and were regarded terrorists by the regimes and their imperialist backers, later became the leaders of the Red Wave that carried some of them to the center of state power.

It was not clear that the US and local capitalist-military elites will allow such a change to take place. As late as 2002 the US still tried to repeat its old tricks by initiating a coup against Chavez in Venezuela. At the same time there was talk in imperialist circles of restoring military power in restive Argentina. Only after the masses in Caracas took control of the streets and repelled the coup, and after the US got embroiled in Iraq, that the door opened widely for some fresh political air.

Achievements and Limitations

The new left-leaning (to various degrees) governments brought significant achievements to the masses that brought them to power.

The capitalist media likes to say that the main factor behind the economic development and the reduction in poverty over the last 15 years are mostly due to luck: The rise in the price of commodities as a result of China’s economic miracle. This is just another lie that tries to hide the importance of political power in deciding the distribution of wealth, internationally and locally.

The Argentinian government refused to pay in full its external debt, much of it was money given by world capitalism to bankroll the murderous dictatorship. It invested in local development instead of squeezing the people to pay for endless usurpation.

Chavez taking control of Venezuela’s oil production

Only in 2003, after 4 years in government, a failed coup and a long strike by the company, Chavez succeeded to take control of PDVSA – Venezuela’s oil producing state-owned company – and to use the country’s vast resources for improving the life of the impoverished masses.

All around the region, to different levels, governments reversed privatizations and invested in social programs: education, health, social housing and relief from poverty. They reduced the dependency of their economies on the US and the IMF and looked for other opportunities, first and foremost by strengthening ties with China. By and large, Latin America succeeded to avoid the economic crisis that erupted in the imperialist centers in 2007-8.

All those were significant achievements that were hard to imagine before. We have witnessed dozens of countries around the world were economic bonanza from natural resource or commodities led to surge in corruption, repression, social marginalization and even civil war.

But the “Red Wave” was not a full revolution. Coming to power in democratic elections, the new regimes, even while writing new constitutions, kept the structure of the capitalist states. No one even tried to implement “the dictatorship of the proletariat”. The experiments with “participatory democracy” and “people’s power” remained limited and in no place outweighed the state apparatus.

On the economic level what was implemented is “mixed economy” with strengthening of the state’s sector but still leaving much space for the private sector. This could be expected, as the socialist states that survived the collapse of the Soviet Union also adopted different models of mixed economy. But in China political control remains in the hands of the communist party, after the capitalist class was annihilated (with much else) by the Cultural Revolution. In Latin America the Oligarchas have never lost their taste for state power.

The Ebb of the Red Wave

For some time the red wave seemed irreversible – but this was a mood, not a learned historical assessment.

Now the inevitable economic cycle, a basic feature of the capitalist economy, brings a delayed recession to many countries in Latin America. As everywhere, economic recession tends to expose the weaknesses of the economy, the society and the government. In the adversarial politics of representative democracy people in stress turn to the opposition not for what it stands for but to punish their failed governments.

Peronism failed intself…

The capitalist media celebrated the election of right-wing Macri as president of Argentine (November 2015) and the victory of the opposition in the parliamentary elections in Venezuela (December 2015) as the end of the Red Wave. The real picture is much more complicated.

After years in government the masses are entitled to judge their leftist rulers for their achievements and not for their rhetoric. The real meaning of leftist policy is loyalty to the workers and other poor masses and for their interests. The assurance of the interests of the poor masses can only come through the organization of these masses and their active participation in politics.

No left party or government is immune to corruption. It may even be that the corruption on the left is more destructive and more irritating, as the right is well known to serve the rich anyway. And incompetence may be in some cases as damaging as bad intentions. Forming a government to effectively serve the masses is the final real test to the sincerity, wisdom and creative abilities of those left parties that succeeded to reach this stage.

Of course, there are severe external pressures. The US and other imperialist powers are not innocent spectators. They will still do whatever they can to fail any attempt to create a more equal distribution of power and global resources. And don’t expect the local exploiters to play fair. They will use their money (as long as they have it) to buy and bribe their way to power as they ever did. But when you are in government you are best placed to mobilize the masses with the state apparatus to counter those pressures – if this is your vision and you are up to the task.

Climbing the Spiral

The task of the left forces in Latin America is not to preserve their power in its current shape but to find new ways to empower their people. Periods in opposition shouldn’t be regarded as a disaster. We may hope that the trauma of dictatorships and civil wars will not return to Latin America (in many other parts of the world it is still a painful reality). The main task, in opposition like in government, is to build a movement that is really connected and committed to the masses, open the way for them to express themselves and control political decisions, and find practical solutions to promote their aspirations.

The new surge of the Red Wave in Latin America, with or without some right wing government in-between, depends on the left’s ability to evolve, passing the leadership to a new generation (sometimes under the leadership of different parties), developing the model for participatory democracy that will ensure real control of the people over the state apparatus and implementing a modern socialist economy that will serve the people as a whole.

Haifa, March 2016

Discussion

As I’m not an expert on Latin American affairs, I sent this article to some friends for comments.

Below is one response that I’ve already received…

A Trotskyist View from Argentina

By: Daniel Gaido

I’m afraid I disagree with the analysis

There was never a Red Wave. Red is the symbol of communism, and the local bourgeoisie not only was not expropriated but did very well indeed under those allegedly red governments. To give you just one example: when Cristina Kirchner traveled to China, she was accompanied by Francesco “Franco” Macri, the father of Mauricio Macri, who in that single trip alone made 900 million dollars as commission for the signing of contracts with Chinese companies. This shows the completely bogus character of the opposition between peronism and macrism, as does the fact that the agreement with the holdouts has been made with the help of the peronist deputies and senators, who gave Macri (and imperialism) the quorum and the votes they needed.

The current “shift to the right” is the result of the bogus (bourgeois) character of the alleged left and of the crisis of world capitalism. Since those allegedly leftist governments saw their task as being “humane” administrators of capitalist exploitation (amidst huge corruption – see Brazil but also Lazaro Baez in Argentina) it is only natural that they should be brought down by a crisis of capitalism.

Not only social inequality continued to grow under the “red wave” governments (not a single shanty town has been eradicated, and indeed they have grown exponentially all over the region) but the colonial character of the Latin American economies has become much more marked under those allegedly nationalist governments. There has been a steep primarization of exports, which are virtually all primary products (commodities): soya beans, oil, cooper, etc.

“Forming a government to effectively serve the masses” implies expropriating the bourgeoisie and handing over the means of production to the state, as Lenin and Che Guevara did. All the rest is empty talk aimed at deceiving the masses.5. Where is the working class in your analysis? It is never the subject of history, capable of determining its own destiny. Apparently it can only choose between a “good” and a “bad” bourgeois government, but it is and will always remain cannon fodder for capitalist exploitation.

6. “a movement that is really connected and committed to the masses, open the way for them to express themselves and control political decisions, and find practical solutions to promote their aspirations.” All this is, to put it mildly, extremely vague. I’d rather stick to Marx’s idea of what is needed:

Against the collective power of the propertied classes the working class cannot act, as a class, except by constituting itself into a political party, distinct from, and opposed to, all old parties formed by the propertied classes.

This constitution of the working class into a political party is indispensable in order to insure the triumph of the social revolution and its ultimate end — the abolition of classes.

The combination of forces which the working class has already effected by its economical struggles ought at the same time to serve as a lever for its struggles against the political power of landlords and capitalists.

The lords of the land and the lords of capital will always use their political privileges for the defense and perpetuation of their economical monopolies and for enslaving labor. To conquer political power has therefore become the great duty of the working classes.

It is now fully five years since the greatest upheavals in the modern history of the Arab World started in Tunis. Always impressed by the latest events, we tend to forget the deep roots of the current violent struggle. But unless we confront the causes, there is little chance that the symptoms will be healed.

The wave of refugees that has reached Europe and the terror attacks in Paris reminded many people in Europe and beyond of the crisis in our region – but at the same time led them to forget that the main victims of this crisis are the people of the region themselves.

Divide and Rule

For many centuries the people of the Middle East were not really free. They could not manage their own economies and politics as they would like.

After the Ottoman Empire was destroyed in the First World War, the European powers were quick to grab control of the region. Britain and France divided the region that expands from Turkey to the Indian Ocean between themselves in the secret Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916.

In order to ensure their control of the region, the imperialist powers used the well-tried policy of “divide and rule”. In many regions of the Middle East they supported minorities and gave them privileges over the majority, knowing that the minority would always be dependent on external powers to maintain its influence and control. In other areas they gave control to local families and made them kings or emirs, concentrating power in the hands of small elites.

They gave Palestine to the Zionist movement to build a state for Jewish immigrants at the expense of the local Arab population.

They built a sectarian state in Lebanon with the Christians at the top of the hierarchy.

They granted Sunni Islam a privileged position in Iraq.

They created the kingdom of Jordan and bestowed it on the Hashemite family from the Arab peninsula, which relies on and secures privileges for the Bedouin minority.

Syria comprised what was left over after the rest of the Arab East was divided between imperialist clients. It went through a period of instability, until it also came under the rule of a dictatorship based on the Alawite minority.

The Political Economy of Oil

The economy of the Middle East is mostly characterized by its dependence on oil as the main export product. Oil is a very political product, as it is easy to control and to monopolize. Even in many developed countries, oil taxation is an important source of government income. In our region, oil is the main export product and the main source of revenue for many governments.

An oil-based economy differs from one based on agriculture or industry. Primitive agriculture requires a large workforce. Developed industry requires educated workers. In normal economies the prosperity of the government or the elite is to a degree dependent on the well-being and cooperation of the masses and on some level of peace.

Oil requires a very small workforce to extract. The key to controlling its

Top spenders on Arms as proportion of local GDP – 2011 (below) – 2012

riches is sovereignty, or control of the state apparatus. The masses are not useful in this process. The rulers regard their people as unwanted extra mouths: you have to feed them and they may complain. In addition the price of oil tends to soar at times of war and insecurity and to slump at times of peace.

The interest of the imperialist powers is not only to secure the flow of oil to their economies. They also gain much of the proceedings through ownership of the fields themselves or of the shipping, processing and distribution facilities. It is also in the interest of the western economies that the oil wealth will not be invested in the development of the local economy or the wellbeing of the local population. Trillions of oil dollars, which were accumulated by the local rulers, are kept in western banks or investment funds and constitute a mainstay of the western economies.

Another way that the oil money is going back to the western powers is through selling weapons to the local regimes. In the arms industry profits are very high. A few western powers still maintain the technological superiority to control the markets. The security and political alliance with the top world powers is also a safety belt for the local rulers against any demand for reform from their wretched people.

The division of the Arab region between small artificial states helps to prevent the utilization of local resource to develop the local economy. Generally speaking – the oil belongs to some states while the hungry people live in other states. One special example for this policy was the creation of the state of Kuwait. It was an Iraqi oil field that was separated from Iraq by the British and given by them in 1961 to the Sabah family to rule.

The destructive role of Zionism

The Zionist colonization of Palestine was designed from its beginnings to serve the imperialist powers (initially Britain, later the US) as a bulwark against Arab independence. The Palestinians were the immediate victims

Ethnic Cleansing in the Galilee 1948

of Zionism, as 78% of Palestine was occupied by Israel in 1948 and most of the population was expelled in the ensuing Ethnic Cleansing.

The regional role of Zionism was first emphasized in the “Tripartite Aggression” of 1956, when Israel spread-headed a joint attack with Britain and France against Egypt over the nationalization of the Suez Canal.

In the 1967 war Israel succeeded not only to complete its occupation of Palestine but also to take Sinai from Egypt and the Golan Heights from Syria. One dangerous consequence of that war was the decision of the Egyptian leadership, led by Anwar Sadat, to change course and “sell-out” Egypt economically and politically to the US, in return for regaining formal control of Sinai. In Syria the sense of vulnerability in face of the Zionist aggression was an important factor behind the right-wing coup that brought the Assad dynasty to power. This pattern was consolidated into a comprehensive US strategy for the Middle East: Let Israel beat the Arabs and later hold Israel back in return for Arab political concessions to US interests.

To enable this mechanism, it was set in official agreements that the US should guarantee Israeli military superiority over any coalition of regional countries. This was possible when the Arab armies were mostly composed of illiterate peasants led by corrupt officers. But to keep this promise of military superiority of a small settler state with a few million people (currently 6 million) over states representing hundreds of millions Arabs requires putting a brake over the development of the whole region.

After the 1979 Iranian revolution toppled the US-sponsored dictatorship

The Iraq-Iran war (1980-88) left colossal destruction on both sides

of the Shah, the US encouraged their then-client Iraq’s president Saddam Hussein to attack Iran. At the same time, Israel supplied weapons to the Iranians – at the highest days of the Islamic revolution – with the clear goal to prolong the conflict and increase the destruction on both sides. In the war that lasted from 1980 till 1988 hundreds of thousands were killed on each side and the suffering and destruction were colossal.

In the aftermath of this war, Iraq became a main target of the US-Israeli policy of containment, utilizing the excuse of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. Iraq was a rare case among the Arab states where Oil and Population met in one state – so it could become a center of economic and military development. This led to 13 years of intense sanctions on Iraq, including systematic prevention of food and medicine, which led to the death of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children and many more adults. Not satisfied with this creeping genocide, the US, with active prodding from the Zionist lobby, occupied Iraq in 2003 and dismantled the foundations of the Iraqi state.

Even as Israel is not as useful tool for imperialism as it used to be, the commitment of the Western powers to preserve its racist system comes at a high price for the region as a whole. When, in 2006, there was a rare attempt to hold semi-democratic elections in the 1967-occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza, the Palestinians gave clear majority to Islamic Hamas, rejecting the corrupt rule of Fatah that was oppressing Palestinians at the service of the occupation. The whole “international community” hurried to sanction the Palestinians for not showing more sympathy with their occupiers. The siege of Gaza, reinforced regularly by massacres, was designed to be a lesson in democracy and its outcomes for the whole region.

Israel very much wanted a repetition of the war on Iraq with another, bigger, imperialist war against Iran. This was too much for the US to swallow, as it already paid a very high toll for the Iraqi adventure, not least some 1 trillion dollar of expenses that could revive the crippled US economy. Now, as Syria is burning and bleeding, Israel doesn’t hide its satisfaction, as another “potential danger” is neutralized.

The rise of political Islam

In spite of all the above mentioned problems, many analysts still describe the current conflict as a result of the rise of “Islamic Extremism”. As if the people of the Middle East are not revolting against their oppression. As if all was well until unexplained crazy mood of extremism took hold.

This is the most superstitious and out-of-context explanation of political events.

Islam, as any other religion, and as many other ideologies like “liberalism” and “socialism”, all proposing a methodology for organizing society, can be used (or misused) to all sorts of political purposes: Justifying oppressive regimes, instigating war and genocide or struggles against oppression and discrimination.

In the 1980s the US used and paid for Islamic Jihadists to fight the Soviet army in Afghanistan. Almost all Arab regimes use the Islamic religion, by one way or another, to legitimize the rule of elites of different types, most of them serving foreign imperialism more than anybody else. Not long ago it was official policy of Saudi Arabia and Mubarak’s Egypt, orchestrated by the US, to re-invent and inflame the Sunni-Shia conflict in order to distract Arab public opinion by describing Iran as “the real danger” – sparing Israel, the US and local “Sunni” Tyrants.

As all kinds of political expression are oppressed all over the region, it is just natural that the main form of mass organization that can’t be

Masses in Tahrir Square in Cairo

criminalized, practicing religion, becomes a central conveyer of the aspirations of the masses. But when Islam is used as an ideological or organizational framework for struggle against oppression it suddenly loses all legitimacy and described as a danger.

The dominance of Islamic movements in the Middle East is not only a result of political oppression. Nationalist and socialist movements were at the center of Arab politics for decades, but they lost credibility between the masses due to their own mistakes and shortcomings. At the same time Islamic movements, like Hezbollah, Hamas, the Muslim Brothers in Egypt and the Sadrists in Iraq, kept the right balance between grassroots work to care for the daily needs of the masses and political struggle against occupation and tyranny. They implemented the methods taught by Lenin and Mao on how to build a movement effectively. Those Islamic movements that were connected to the masses and opposed local rulers (until Hezbollah took sides with Assad) were also more ready to support democracy and form coalitions with other parties and people from different religions.

What actually pushes masses of people to look for extreme solutions is not “ideology” but extremely harsh conditions. The Sunni communities in Iraq engaged in peaceful protest throughout 2013 against discrimination and oppression by the Shia-led Maliki government that was supported by both US and Iran. It was only after the government rejected any political solution, preferring to send the army to besiege their cities and bomb them, that the local militias organized with the so-called “Islamic State” to throw out the army. Only the shock caused by the victory of the Islamic State in Mosul forced the US and Iran to push aside Maliki and try to sponsor a less sectarian Iraqi government.

In similar conditions, years of bombing of their cities by the Assad regime pushed some Syrians into the arms of the Islamic State. The massacre of more than 200,000 Syrians was not regarded by “the international community” as an emergency until foreigners started to be in danger. It should also be said that the brave Kurdish and Arab opposition in Syria started to fight against the extremism of the so-called Islamic State long before it became an international affair.

Other regimes are likewise driving their people towards extremism. Egypt’s dictator Al-Sisi is doing it in Sinai. In Libya it is the policy of the army led by retired general and CIA agent Haftar, supported by the “internationally recognized” government in Tobruk. The method is well known: Bomb the people instead of listening to them. The reason is also familiar: When you’re the only “defender of the country” against “extremists” you will get plenty support and nobody will dare to question your crimes.

No mechanism for change

The Arab countries, with more than 300 million inhabitants, are now the most politically retarded and oppressive region in the world. There are several reasons for this.

First, it is the region where imperialism is making most money. When the US was forced to withdraw from Vietnam (in 1975) they declared the Middle East to be their next red line: Here they will fight rather than giving up control to nationalist or socialist movements.

The traditional support by western powers for Israel is another reason why they see any democratic reform in the region as a threat. Arab democracies which would need to take public opinion into consideration might well give more support to the Palestinians.

Since the beginning of the 70s and the dramatic rise in the price of oil, and until the beginning of the Arab Spring in 2011, there was no political change in any country in the region. The ruling elites had enough resources to buy or crash any opposition.

While there were significant steps toward democratization in every other region in the world, in the Arab world the ruling elites have only became more oppressive.

A general rehearsal for things to come was played in Algeria in 1991. After

Leaders deposed by the Arab Spring

the Islamists won the first round of the elections, the army took control in a coup and outlawed the Islamists. In the civil war that emerged some 200,000 people died. The military government was fully supported by the western powers all along.

The accumulation of contradictions all over the region inevitably led to a much wider wave of protests and upheavals – the Arab spring.

Like this:

I heard this story from Israeli soldiers that were deployed in the Gaza strip in tense times before Israel’s withdrawal from it: Their commander updated them about the provisions for opening fire. You’re not allowed to open fire at Palestinians unless they pose a threat for you. For example, continued the commander, if you see at night some short figure it is probably a child and you’re not allow to shoot at him. But you can also think that this short figure is a terrorist that intentionally walks with his back bent to try to hide from you – the fact that he tries to hide is a good reason to shoot him.

So all that is required from the Israeli soldiers is some level of imagination and creative thinking… On October 5, 2004 some Israeli soldiers positioned in Rafah saw a 13 year old girl, Iman Al-Hams, walking near their post, carrying a big school-bag.

Iman Al-Hams, shot at the age of 13 for carrying a school bag

They imagined that if her school bag was full of explosives it could be a deadly danger, and shot her dead. Her bag was, of course, full of school books.

Arab Hunting Season

In regular times Israel is trying to build its image as “The Start-Up Nation” and is mostly engaged in Ethnic Cleansing, building illegal Jewish settlement on robbed Arab land, in the 1967 occupied West Bank and in the 1948 occupied Naqab, Triangle and Galilee.

But these are tense times and now the main Israeli sport is Lynching Arabs in the public space. Over the past couple of weeks some 20 Arabs were killed by Israeli PPP – Private Public Partnership – in incidents spread over all of the country, where security personnel and civilians cooperate in spotting Arabs, deciding that they are “dangerous” and Lynching them on the spot. Many more Arabs were beaten and/or shot-at, wounded and/or arrested in similar circumstances. In most incidents no Jews were hurt and the Palestinians were not armed in any way.

Fadi Aloun

Marah Al-Bakri

An “old style” massacre of Palestinian civilian is also going on near the fences of the Gaza “open air prison” where unarmed demonstrators are defined by the Israeli army as “dangerous” and shot at. Israeli air force also took part by bombing and killing a mother and her young daughter.

Media Cooperation

The Israeli media, even its few liberal publications, typically go along with the hysteric Arab bashing that justifies the Lynch. Every Arab victim is described as a terrorist and the news about the victim “holding a Knife” is cited uncritically. Contrary evidence, like the all ubiquitous video films, is only mentioned as “after thought” and “doubts” in some opinion columns.

One example is how Haaretz mentioned that one reason for the tension between Palestinian citizens of Israel is the videos that show what looks like unjustified shootings of Palestinians, like the case of Israa ‘Abed from Nazareth, a 30 years old mother and a Master student of Genetic engineering in the Technion, that was shot in Afula on her way back home. So, the suspicion that Israa was shot for no reason is not “news” – nothing that should be investigated – it is worth mentioning only as background for the new danger of Arab protests…

False Positives

One simple way to assess how many faked accusations are framed on Arab victims is the recurrence of “False Positives” that are reported in the Israeli press. From time to time the mob picks by mistake an Arab-looking Jewish victim. In all these cases the Israeli media report, in the end, the simple fact that there was no base for the accusations. It never occurs when Arabs are victimized.

Jewish famous fears

Israel is making a career of describing itself as a victim, justifying any crime against the Palestinians by its fear for itself and its Jewish citizens.

In spite of all the recent hysteria in the Israeli media – I simply don’t buy it.

If I had a neighbor that I was afraid of – I would neither let my dog shit on his door, nor let my children play in his garden and destroy it.

Israel is deliberately pushing its civilians into every Palestinian area, beyond all its “security fences”, to grab and settle on robbed Palestinian lands and to pray in Al-Aqsa mosque, the holiest Muslim shrine in Palestine. All these are well planned provocations designed to create havoc and more reasons for killing Palestinians, expropriating them and ultimately pushing them altogether out of Palestine.

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Sunday, October 18, 2015

Israel was always a nasty place, with blatant racism, discrimination, occupation and war…

But lynching people in the streets is justifiably regarded as one of the nastiest habits in history, and now it became a national sport in Israel.

Since I wrote this small piece about “The Lynch-Up Nation” on last Tuesday – things are getting even worse. Some 4 Arabs were lynched just yesterday (Saturday 17/10) – and one Jew from Bat Yam was also executed in the street by trigger happy police in similar circumstances. Of course – only in the case of killing a Jew we hear the standard announcement that “the circumstances of the killing will be investigated”. The concept of an innocent Arab victim simply doesn’t exist in the Israeli sphere: Media, Police, courts, etc. To say nothing about almost ALL Zionist parties which compete in incitement for more killings.

Please spread the word and help to denounce and expose those murderous acts.

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Monday, October 19, 2015

In a shocking video, you can see how a bloodthirsty and hysterical mob lynched Habtum Zarhum, an Eritrean asylum seekers who had been shot accidentally at the scene of the attack in Beersheba (where a Palestinian previously killed an Israeli soldier), and tried to smash his skull with a heavy bench as he lay bleeding on the floor. He died from his wounds.

Will anybody ever be punished? If he was a Palestinian Arab they would have been all praised, his house would be destroyed and his family will be harassed…